Owner-reported complaints naming the exterior lighting system, filed with NHTSA
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Reports naming headlights, tail lights, turn signals and other exterior lighting. Every record below is an owner-reported complaint about the 2021 Tesla Model Y submitted to NHTSA — not a confirmed defect, not a recall and not a manufacturer bulletin. 9 reports on file name it.
Complaints are reports submitted by owners and drivers to NHTSA. They are not verified and do not establish that a defect exists.
Shown in the owner’s own words, exactly as filed
Low beams are too bright and aimed too high, constantly blinding other drivers. Automatic high beams are always turning on and will not automatically turn off when another vehicle is detected.
We Americans need you to stop auto manufacturers from using blinding headlights on their cars. This will cause accidents and you will be liable for allowing this to begin with.
I often experience significant lag for rearview camera and the turn signal indicator lights. Sometimes it takes up to 10 seconds for the rearview camera view to come up. It's dangerous because it's hard to tell if the car is in reverse or not. Sometimes it takes multiple attempts to change gear. I have similar experience with the turn signal indicators. It takes multiple attempts for the signals to come up, or there is often significant delay on when I turn on the signal and when the lights actually come on.
1. Under certain circumstances, the vehicle is able to decelerate using its regenerative braking system without illuminating the brake lights. This occurs during "one pedal driving" where the operator is driving only using the throttle to both accelerate and decelerate the car, without the input of mechanical brakes. This is a programming issue, not a mechanical issue. The brake lights are "triggered" when the car decelerates at a threshold of -0.1G or greater. At anything less than -0.1G, the lights will not turn on. This drastically increases the risk of a rear-end collision. 2. Under the right conditions the operator could decelerate from a speed of 45 mph to 5 mph without the brake lights ever coming on, not until they reach a near-complete-stop. This poses a high risk to all drivers that are behind the vehicle, and fails to give warning to other drivers. It should never be possible for this to occur. 3. This problem has been in discussion on Tesla owner's forums; specifically "Tesla Motors Club". (see attached posts) Tesla has the highest accident rate, and no one has yet figured out why. A typical internal combustion vehicle equipped with an automatic transmission coast-down decelerates at an average rate of -0.02G. The Tesla's regen brake light turn-on threshold of -0.1G is 5X more than the deceleration of a typical coasting ICE car (-0.02G) . For slow-downs between -0.02G and -0.1G, where the Tesla's deceleration exceeds an ICE car by up to 5X, there is no warning to other drivers, as the brake lights will not turn on. Any braking force above -0.02G of deceleration exceeds that of an ICE car, and should be made-known via the brake-lights. I hope that this is not overlooked; it is extremely important for this to be addressed to reduce rear-end collisions involving EV's. 99%+ of vehicles in the USA are ICE, and do not coast-down at a rate of -0.1G. The brake lights must indicate this above-normal reduction in speed.
The purpose of this missive is to complain about how blindingly bright the Tesla Model Y's headlights shine into the eyes of on-coming traffic and pedestrian. The Model 3's headlights are marginally less blinding (probably only because they are a few inches lower than the Model Y's) and there seems to be no similar problem with the Model S and Model X headlights. I have no issue with bright headlights in general, but they should not be focused into the eyes of on-coming traffic and innocent pedestrian. To be clear, I do not own this Model Y represented by this VIN. Thanks! [XXX] INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)
When activating the Tesla Autopilot, the lights are automatically controlled to activate the bright headlight mode. The vehicle does not permit the user to disable the automatic brights setting while the car is in Autopilot mode. While the Tesla vehicle attempts to turn off the brights when an oncoming vehicle approaches, the Tesla vehicle fails to detect the oncoming vehicle and the brights remain on. This causes the oncoming vehicle to flash their brights back at the Tesla vehicle because the driver of the oncoming vehicle is blinded by the brights of the Tesla vehicle. I have asked Tesla to fix this issue, but they refused to address it and provided a vague suggestion that a future software update will fix the issue. A recent software update has not fixed this issue.
The Tesla’s operating system on the center screen froze. I was unable to view speed. I was also unable to turn on wipers, blinkers, or switch headlight beam setting. The operating system had to be rebooted while driving. This has happened twice. The first time was 2/11/2022, on I40 W in TN. The second time, noted below, was on I65 S in AL.
Hello, Tesla has released an update that will turn on the side camera when the blinker is activated. At night, the blinker can blind the camera making it difficult if not impossible to see any object. I'm concerned that this can cause the driver to turn into another car at night. The picture attached is with the hazard lights on and you can see how one camera works correctly and the other has a massive glare.
What component or system failed or malfunctioned, and is it available for inspection upon request? The Dashboard and yes. How was your safety or the safety of others put at risk? car display has unexpectedly rebooted while I was driving, my display rebooted. It crashed when my passenger was attempting to read the release notes while I was driving. It was night, and after it rebooted, the part of the screen that shows the car and road flashed white, blinding me while driving. I lost the ability to signal or determine if it's signaling, no speed indicator no anything, not even a signal sound. I couldn't control the windshield wiper, when I attempted to turn on the emergency blinkers, I had no visual or audio confirmation that it was working. this lasted for 1-2 minutes. Has the problem been reproduced or confirmed by a dealer or independent service center? No as the vehicle or component been inspected by the manufacturer, police, insurance representatives or others? No Were there any warning lamps, messages or other symptoms of the problem prior to the failure, and when did they first appear? No
Higher-selling and older vehicles accumulate more reports. Counts are not failure rates and are not directly comparable between vehicles that sold in very different numbers.
Categories with enough reports to have a page of their own
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